Eric Grundhauser from the Atlas Obscura contacted the IUF some weeks ago and ask us what is the hardest Unicycle trick? We thought that Eli Brill could be a very good person to discuss this question with and so bring Eric and Eli together. Here you can see the result:

LAUCC is the regional unicycle event in Latin America, uniting riders from the entire continent, passing across a few countries as Costarica, Mexico, Colombia Peru, Chile and Ecuador in the past editions. In this 8th event, Quito will host the competition; Ecuador for second time will receive the best riders of South and Central America in the disciplines of trial, street, flatland and downhill.
The Latin American Unicycle Championship and Convention, is a chance for all the riders and non-riders, for meeting new people doing what they love to do, unicycling. With activities, workshops and competitions, LAUCC yearly increase the unicycle community in this continent.
The support of the international and national brands plus the great efforts of the Latin American unicycle community are giving as a result, the 8th edition of this event that will every year grow and improve.
LAUCC Quito is official, from the 6th to the 13th of April in Quito this 2018, an event made by Latin American riders for the entire world.

Hello Unicycle community, we thought it was time to give you an update about what’s going on with the IUF and in the unicycling world. Included in this short newsletter are announcements, along with a few requests for you:

IUF Board election 2017

Every 2 years the IUF completes our Board elections and it is once again time for this. During the IUF Public meeting at the past Unicon we already asked for applicants and we wanted to give another chance for you to apply to be on the Board. We are always looking for new active members of the Board. Applicants should be interested in unicycling and in administration as well. A good level in English is very helpful and you should be available multiple times a year for online meetings which are often at strange times, since the Board is spread around the world.

If you are seriously interested in becoming a member of the IUF Board of Directors, please send an application to contact@unicycling.org by the 26 March 2017. The application should include: who you are, what kind of experience you have, and what your motivation is to become a Board member.

European Championships 2017

The 2017 unicycle season has already begun with EUC 2017 winter edition last weekend (with a new Platform High Jump World Record!) Coming up this summer the official European Championships will be hosted in the Netherlands. If you have already signed up, be happy and excited until it starts. If not, you should hurry to sign up in time. You can find all the details about the EC here: ecunicycling2017.eu

Don’t miss it, enjoy it!

Unicon 19

As you probably already know, the next Unicon will be hosted in Seoul, South Korea. The Koreans are working on it every day along with support from the IUF by Ken Looi (Board member and Unicon 15 host) and Jenni Rinker, who are supporting them as best as possible. Right now, they are working on the homepage to make it available in several languages, so make sure to check out unicon19.kr every now and then as to not miss any information. You can also follow their Facebook page here: facebook.com/Unicon19. We are looking forward to another exciting Unicon in 2018, see you there!

Unicon 20

Unicon 19 is still more than a year away but Unicon 20 will be something special. It’s the 20th Unicon which will be held in the year 2020, and it could be YOU who could host this amazing triple 20 event. Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it, and send us your proposal if you think Unicon 20 in 2020 should happen in your area. You are also welcome to contact us with questions about how to host or what is involved in hosting the event. In fact even if you do not have a proposal ready, we would be happy to hear about any interest by anyone who is considering hosting in 2020. Proposals should be submitted by the end of 2017.

We probably forgot to mention something, but we have to save some content for Newsletter No 2 as well!

As the IUF Rulebook director, I am happy to announce the official release of the re-organized IUF Rulebook. This reorganization was completed as voted upon in the previous IUF Rulebook Committee. This has been a huge volunteer effort and the majority of the work has been done by Steve and Mary Koehler from Minnesota, USA. I would like to deeply thank them for all of their hard work.

Below is a write-up by Steve Koehler describing the both the process and the design of the reorganized rulebook. You can find the reorganized rulebook on the IUF’s Publication page.

Scott Wilton
IUF Vice-President and Rulebook Director

Background

Over the past year, as decided upon by the IUF Rulebook Committee 2014, Mary and I have been reorganizing the material in the IUF Rulebook to address some problems we perceived in previous revisions. These problems included:

The chapters for different events were highly inconsistent in what was covered and how the material was presented.

The rule book addressed multiple audiences in the same section or paragraph. This made it difficult for a reader to know which rules applied.

It was hard to determine the totality of the rules for an event, because some rules were inherited from Chapter 1 and some chapters referred to other chapters for additional rules.

There was not a clear distinction between rules and advice. [We did not directly address this issue in the reorganization.]

The organization we came up with to address these issues was to divide each event into sections by role. There are separate sections for the competitor, the event organizer, and officials. Within each of these sections, we devised an organization of subsections, so that the same material appears in the same place within each event.

The process we used to move rules to the reorganized rule book was to move the rules one at a time to an appropriate new section. Paragraphs, or even sentences, were split and moved to the appropriate place. Rules from Chapter 1 were replicated in all related events.

The resulting reorganized rule book was completed too late to use for Unicon 17, but will provide a good basis for the next round of rule book edits. With the new organization, which highlights the inconsistencies between chapters, we have the opportunity to fill in the gaps and make the next rule book much better than previous ones.

Top-Level Organization into Parts

At the top level, the rule book is divided first into Parts, then into Chapters. The parts are named as follows:

General Rules and Definitions

Track: Racing

Track: Other

Road: Races

Mountain Unicycling: Races

Mountain Unicycling: Cyclocross

Freestyle: Artistic

Freestyle: Standard Skill

Freestyle: X-Style

Urban: Flatland

Urban: Street

Urban: Trials

Urban: Jumps

Team Sports: Hockey

Team Sports: Basketball

The parts cover individual disciplines, and are grouped by name into general categories. There is an introductory part for general information. This overall structure is only slightly different from the previous rule book.

Organization of Parts into Chapters

Each event part is divided into four primary chapters, based on the main audience for the material (competitor, official, or event host). The chapters are the same for each event part, and are as follows:

Overview

Competitor Rules

Judges and Officials Rules

Event Organizer Rules

This change is a major departure from the previous rule book. One of the motivations of this reorganization was to facilitate the possibility to publish a smaller rulebook with only competitor rules or only event organizer rules.

Organization of Chapters into Sections

The Overview chapter contains general information applicable to all readers. We put here a clear definition of the event and a small competitor summary to point out the most important things a competitor needs to know.

The Competitor chapters contain the following primary sections:

Safety [what safety gear is required]

Unicycles [what unicycles can be used]

Rider Identification [whether a race number/chip is required]

Protests [how protests are handled]

Event Flow [rules that apply during the running of the event, in order of the event flow (for example, information on race start comes before information on race finish)].

Additional sections are used for rules outside of event flow, such as sign-up deadlines or the need to upload music or list of skills to be performed.

The next two chapters, Judges and Officials Rules and Event Organizer Rules, are somewhat less defined. Both have some common sections.

The Judges and Officials Rules chapters have the following sections:

Sections describing the required officials

Detailed rules concerning judging or officiating

The Event Organizer Rules chapters have the following sections:

Venue [the requirements of the venue and/or courses]

Officials [a short list of required officials]

Communication [rules related to what needs to be communicated, and when]

Age Groups [which age groups/categories are required]

Practice [whether there is a requirement for practice time on the course or at the venue]

Guidelines for Rule Book Updates

As we go into the next round of the rule book update process, we have the opportunity to make some big improvements, beyond the basic reorganization. First, in order to retain the clarity of the new organization, we need to coordinate our efforts.

Try to understand the intent of the new structure, and keep it intact.

If you can think of a section that is missing, but should be common to other parts, please discuss this with the main committee, so we can amend the structure. This is particularly needed in the Judges and Officials Rules and Event Organizer Rules chapters.

The new structure makes it clear that there are missing rules. Please start filling these in.

Some of the rules, such as protest rules inherited from chapter 1, may seem strange. Please correct these.

When Mary and I did the reorganization, we left a lot of notes in the rule book source files regarding possible shortcomings or problems. These should be made available to the committees, so they can be addressed.

IUF Rulebook Committee 2016: After each Unicon, a new IUF Rulebook Committee is formed to develop the next version of the IUF rules. If you are interested in changing the current rules, or creating new ones, this is the committee for you.

IUF Age Group Committee 2016: This committee is being formed to help standardize the age groups that are used at IUF competitions. This will be a very small committee.

IUF World Record Committee 2016: The IUF World Record Guidelines were established in 2011 but it’s time for them to be updated. That’s what this committee is for.

If you are interested in being on any of these committees in any form, please follow the link below to request to be on a committee. Note: you must submit the form once for each of the three committees you are interested in being on.

Yesterday we got the first new World Records in Donostia, congratulations to the riders! Here are the new records and who did them:Track Coasting:
Male: Knut Steffens (Germany) 177.6m Donostia, Spain July 2016
Female: Lisa-Maria Hanny (Germany) 170.3m Donostia, Spain July 2016

Congratulations to Mary Wegscheider, Mike Taylor and Aiden Teleki for beating the existing Records in Highjump on Plattform while the WInter EUC 2016. So the femal World Record is now at 0,87 Meter and the male World Record is at 1,38 Meter.

We are glad to announce that the Unicon 18 registration opened today. Be an early bird and register yourself soon, and don’t forget to tell your friends about it. More information concerning Unicon 18 will be following in the next few days.